Astrology is an obvious one. I've been shocked at how many smart, educated people I've met who believe in astrology. When someone asks me "What's your sign?" I always want to reply "I don't know, but asking me that question is a good sign that you're not worth talking to".

For a specific purpose, to be revealed later, it would help if we got out of the political opinion category and into things that science can attack and disprove. Helpful, also, to put religion to the side.

Palladian, I did that once, told a guy I couldn't take him seriously because he believed in astrology, and when I proceeded to tell the story to one friend and then another, both told me they believed in astrology.

Rational people believe the lower atmosphere is largely free of yeast cells and bacteria and are therefore surprised that it can be easily captured, cultivated and used to make things like bread and beer.

Herbal supplements. I know quite a few people, even people in medicine-related fields (though not doctors) who "believe" in herbal supplements. I'm not impugning the possibility that there is some merit to the medicinal properties of some herbs and plants, but many of them, and the claims made about them, are not backed up by scientific study.

Rational people believe the US is responsible for two jet airliners flying into the World Trade Center. They use as proof their confusion about another close-by tower that also collapsed but wasn't hit. That all five planes were coordinated by an administration they already hold in contempt for being incompetent.

I know very intelligent people who believe all sorts of absolutely tenuous hypotheses related to how the "sins of man" are destroying the environment. And I don't mean accepting the various ways that man is altering myriad micro-environments through bad policy and illegal dumping and overdevelopment and such, but wacky, Algorian theories about giant tidal waves and such.

Oh yes Chip! How could I forget 9-11 denialists! I was at a party with a (liberal) architect friend of mine once and we were absolutely shocked when a group of people started talking about how 9-11 was a "lie" and that Israel was involved and thermite charges planted in the buildings and the absence of a jet at the Pentagon and how "fire doesn't melt steel". My friend absolutely savaged them, he being an architect and familiar with engineering. They were shocked, as if no one had ever challenged them on their stupidity before. It was a very bizarre scene.

Auras (A scientist from the FDA once started reading my aura on a plane flight. Weird.), ghosts, spiritual vibrations from crystals, vaccines causing autism, organic produce being far far more healthy than non-organic, sunscreen causing more cancer than the sun, and witchcraft (Started flipping through a silly book someone had in college, and he called, "Do not say that word in there. I'm not kidding. It's dangerous." Please.)

And, while I'm ranting, how about The Discovery Channel and The History Channel turning into The Ghost and Unfound Monster Channels?

They say that at the time of the American Revolution it was possible for a well-educated man to know everything there was to know. Now it isn't even possible to everything in your own area of expertise.

I'm OK with that. I don't need a supernatural explanation to help me sleep at night. I mock those that do, they deserve to be mocked.

That quantum theory supports the belief that one controls his surroundings through suggestion al a "What the Bleep Do We Know?" (A doctor recommended that movie to me as an example of a constructive dialog between science and religion. I watched it, and then emailed him to say that it was a dialog between pseudoscience and the Ramtha cult.)

Otherwise rational, intelligent people who believe that assorted New Agey rituals, chants, aromatherapies and whatnot, will aid their well-being. They're particularly thick on the ground in places like Santa Fe.

Getting a chill causes the common cold.A positive attitude can overcome most illnesses.God rewards their own good behavior.Their own children are brilliant but make bad grades because their school doesn't challenge them. Children of others are simply dumb or lazy.Expensive cosmetics will eliminate wrinkles.Certain foods can cure/treat cancer while chemo is "poison."

Politically connected people who move in and out of government and high paying jobs in the private sector and believe it's because they're so talented, and by doing so it will help them to do their work on behalf of the "little guy" against greedy corporations.

Rational Intelligent people believe the health care system in Cuba is better than the one in the United States, and further, that nationalized health care systems in general are an improvement over a privately owned competitive system.

You're a bloghog, Palladian. I don't don't know if I coined the term, but you're it. You're also uninformed in the worst way - same as those that believe in astrology. Your comments about herbs as being useless medicinally is so STUPID that it's beyond the pale. Let's start with ASPRIN which was discovered in the bark of the Willow tree. I'll add another longer comment about herbal medicine later after I come back from Chinatown, here in L.A., with herbs prescribed by my Chinese doctor for a stomachache, that you caused, Palladian. Millions of Chinese depend on a 2,000 year old practice that is backed up by modern science for the bulk of their medicinal needs, for every condition that you can think of. You're an ignorant bloghog, Palladian, and you're no Paul Newman, either. You suck by comparison.

Rational, intelligent people believe that filling out the product registration activates their warranty, and further, that the information they're providing will not be use to bombard them with further product information nor will the information be sold.

Rational, intelligent, educated people honestly believe the next version of Windows is automatically an improvement over the previous version because it's newer. This line of reasoning falls prey to several formal fallacies.

Chip Ahoy commented 19 times so far in this thread. He qualifies for the term bloghog. Disgustingly uninformed, too. Bloghogs are really worse than trolls because they tend to be bloviatingly uninformed loudmouths. MCG is a terrible troll and bloghog, too.

Intelligent, educated people believe gays should be barred from military service, citing the reason that it would be bad for morale and that it would deteriorate discipline or generally become disruptive, but then, displaying astounding cognitive dissonance, flock to the movie "300", a film which incidentally produces 90 million hits.

Good people, rational, intelligent and educated, honestly believe individuals that were elevated through aggressive outreach programs of affirmative action into professional fields do not weaken those professions by mediocrity, and that if those professional fields are weakened it's a small price to pay to eliminate racial injustice.

Further, they believe, in the social sense, it's reasonable for sons and daughters to pay for the sins and errors of their fathers and mothers, and further further, that this activity will somehow finally eliminate a nagging sense of guilt.

Perfectly intelligent and educated people believe that women who wear short skirts, and revealing tops or otherwise provocative clothing, are actually provoking men to attack them. They believe these women are somehow asking to be raped not just desiring to be attractive to the outside world.

Trumpit, I know it's probably difficult to read well through the Thorazine haze, but do try:

"I'm not impugning the possibility that there is some merit to the medicinal properties of some herbs and plants, but many of them, and the claims made about them, are not backed up by scientific study."

I know the history of aspirin, Trumpy. I'll also note that most people who benefit from aspirin today aren't chewing willow bark or drinking willow tea to get it, either. The benefits of salicylates were discovered and isolated and eventually manufactured in a form with far more therapeutic benefit than willow in a natural state possesses. Herbalism, like many other ancient quasi-mystical practices, may have been the genesis of modern pharmaceuticals but, well, a lot has changed since then. Alchemy was the precursor of modern chemistry but you'd be hard-pressed to find organic chemists who are mixing the Black Sun and the Red Lion in their Retorts in a modern lab.

"I'll add another longer comment about herbal medicine later after I come back from Chinatown, here in L.A., with herbs prescribed by my Chinese doctor for a stomachache, that you caused, Palladian."

The big one among my friends is homeopathy. I believe I am the only one of my old friends from college -- all well-educated people with demanding professions -- who does not believe in it and spend money on it.

People have so many wacky food beliefs that I can't keep track of them all. In particular, lately I seem to be meeting a frightening number of people who think raw milk is healthier than pasteurized milk. (I live on a dairy farm, so this subject comes up.)

Worked with a world class physicist, workaholic, whose only form of relaxation was to sunbathe. Totally discounted evidence of sun causing cancer.

Count me as one who believes getting wet and chilled causes a cold. I swear to you every time I get caught out skiing in the rain and get wet and chilled I come down with a cold. Last cold I caught was after getting caught in a chilling rain while snorkling. I never get colds else-wise. I understand the evidence, but I believe that co-factors we don't understand together cause the cold.

``I have arrived at what I call Thurber's Law, which is that scientists don't really know anything about anything. I doubt everything they have ever discovered. I don't think that light has a speed of 7,000,000 miles per second at all (or whatever the legendary speed is). Scientists just think light is going that fast, because they are afraid of it. It's so terrible to look at. I have always suspected that light just plodded along, and now I am positive of it.''

Eric, you're extremely lucky to be here, alive, on Earth. You father produced millions of sperm and one of them helped make you. You're lucky your mother decided to have sex with your dad. You're so lucky. Someone who wins millions in the lottery is lucky. Some people are very unlucky. Can you think of any examples?

it never ceased to amaze me how many otherwise intelligent people believe in luck

I wonder if Palin believes in luck. I've known hard core religious folks who thought that references to luck were references to the power of Satan, aka LUCifer.

I still can't use the word "luck" because of my own exposure (and, being honest, buy in) to this concept. The thinking goes; God controls the world, so hoping for favor from some lucky force is blasphemy.

AJ Lynch says:That life expectancy can be increased significantly in the near future.

Ah, hah, hah! How ridiculous such a belief is. After all, any rational person knows such a thing is utterly impossible! (Not.) After all, whatever hasn't happened in the past before, can be relied upon never to occur in the future!

(Like, say, since nobody had ever done so, it's impossible for people to go to the Moon — another oh-so popular, respectable belief — up until the 1960s, that is, and now once again. Hm… I wonder what happened during the 60's?)

Yes, the whole idea of extended longevity is simply absurd. After all, as noted biologist Jacques Monod put it in his 1971 book Chance and Necessity: “There are occasional promises of remedies expected from the current advances in molecular genetics. This illusion, spread by a few superficial minds, had better be disposed of.” You believe him, right? He's a rational expert in biology!

Pace Jacques Monod, the third of a century since he wrote those disparaging words have revealed that he's utterly wrong (as indeed more farsighted people knew even then).

Unfortunately for J.M., physiologist and geneticist J.B.S. Haldane had the proper comeback for Monod's (much later) words at a time when ol' Jacques was only 14 years old; too bad he didn't take them to heart (from Haldane's Daedalus, or Science and the Future, 1924):

“We are at present almost completely ignorant of biology, a fact which often escapes the notice of biologists, and renders them too presumptuous in their estimates of the present position of their science, too modest in their claims for the future…. The conservative has but little to fear from the man whose reason is the servant of his passions, but let him beware of him in whom reason has become the greatest and most terrible of the passions. These are the wreckers of outworn empires and civilizations, doubters, disintegrators, deicides…. I do not say that biologists as a general rule try to imagine in any detail the future applications of their science. They do not see themselves as sinister or revolutionary figures. They have no time to dream. But I suspect that more of them dream than would care to confess it….”

Folks are aware, right, that just between 2005 and 2006 — a single year — the average lifespan in this country increased by four months (1/3 of a year) — nor is that out of line with typical years. Reminds me of the association in Larry Niven's science fictional “Known Space” universe (where folks were often centuries old) for which the minimum age for membership went up one year for every two that passed….

Then there's the human genome decipherment (the neanderthal genome is scheduled for completion in a couple of months — no joke; shades of Jurassic Park!), the “reading” and understanding of which is now ongoing; plus the discovery and taming now underway of stem cell technology, potentially allowing the regrowing of entirely new blood vessels, hearts, and any other organ of the body.

Thus, it's entirely probable that in the not too distant future, likely for people living today, the future once again will turn out to be very unlike the past.

Some educated people irrationally believe that the U.S. government derives its "just" powers from the consent of the governed. It's not so irrational to believe that the government gets away with the things it gets away with because "we" the people "consent" insofar as we don't collectively rise up to violently throw off our oppressors, like "we" did in the Revolution. But to think that our collective unwillingness to do so (thus far) somehow confers "justice," legitimacy or authority upon the powers the government in fact wields -- that's irrational.

The magical belief that 51% of a vote is enough to legitimize the use of force by that 51% in imposing their will upon the other 49%. Now, if you can come up with 90%, then you might have a better argument that the coercion is probably morally justified (i.e. 99.9% of the people no doubt believe that murder and armed robbery are wrong and should be punished), but these numbers are ultimately arbitrary. There's nothing magical about 51% (or 50.001%), but a lot of educated people seem to think there is.

Bleeper sounds like a dumbed down version of Palladian - his evil twin?

The belief that English is a purely logical language. We have "headache" yet we have "stomach ache". stop correectinng my grammer and speling you morron, bleeper. you should be edited out of from the bleeping universe.

Seven Machos sez:John K's belief that belief that some 49 percent of the people in the United States are being oppressed by tyrants.

Myself, I don't say that the good is bad, but it does astonish me when folks assert that the tyranny of the majority isn't very real.

Perceptive observer of the early United States, Alexis de Tocqueville said it best, I think, in his masterwork Democracy in America (1835-40):

“My greatest complaint against democratic government as organized in the United States is not, as many Europeans make out, its weakness, but rather its irresistible strength. What I found most repulsive in America is not the extreme freedom reigning there but the shortage of guarantees against tyranny.

“When a man or a party suffers an injustice in the United States, to whom can he turn? To public opinion? That is what forms the majority. To the legislative body? It represents the majority and obeys it blindly. To the executive power? It is appointed by the majority and serves as its passive instrument. To the police? They are nothing but the majority under arms. A jury? The jury is the majority vested with the right to pronounce judgment; even the judges in certain states are elected by the majority. So, however iniquitous or unreasonable the measure which hurts you, you must submit.

“But suppose you were to have a legislative body so composed that it represented the majority without being necessarily the slave of its passions, an executive power having a strength of its own, and a judicial power independent of the other two authorities; then you would still have a democratic government, but there would be hardly any remaining risk of tyranny.”

1.) Wind, solar, and other alternative energy sources can provide the bulk of our energy needs within a decade or two. (Corrupt corporate Amerikkka keeps us from making the effortless transition to limitless green energy.)

Related conspiracy theory . . .

2.) Some guy in Encino invented a car in the 50s that runs on (solar power, weasel urine, H2O, pine bark, . . .) and gets unlimited mileage. The only reason you haven't heard of him is that a death squad from the Big 3 auto companies killed him and seized all the blueprints. This happens periodically.

Now you're muddying the waters of your first comment. (Well, actually you're personally reinforcing it by displaying your own laser-like capacity to define the failings of others. Hopefully that was intentionally ironic.)

Palladian said: "That anarchy would be a workable political 'system' in 2008."

Ah, but I am more of a "philosophical anarchist," as one of my intellectual heroes, Albert Jay Nock, described himself. Interestingly, he also considered himself a Georgist (albeit one who was skeptical of trying to implement it politically), a radical (which etymologically simply means going to the origin or root), and . . . a conservative ("when it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change").

Like Nock, I'm not about throwing out the baby with the bathwater, or trying to change society overnight. I just think a more widespread reality-based recognition of the mythological illusions upon which governmental authority and legitimacy is based would be a step in the right direction.

(If quality time is indeed better,a try this little experiment: Tell your employer Monday morning that you are going to work only 15 hours weekly for the same pay you receive for working 40+ hours. But they'll be quality hours).